I tend to like to documents things carefully in my life, from finances to hobbies. When I got into fish keeping I decided to start an aquarium journal to keep track of all the
Benefits of Keeping an Aquarium Journal
Aquarium Tips
On the one hand, once you get the hang of all that goes into fish keeping, maintaining an aquarium is quite simple. On the other hand, there are many concepts that are not obvious and that need to be understood to keep healthy fish and plants.
Here are some articles that summarize some of the most useful things I have learned in building and maintaining our aquarium.
How to Breed Red Cherry Shrimp
When setting up our little nano planted aquarium, I wanted to make it home to some shrimp. It was something new and challenging that I had not tried in my previous childhood aquarium. I am so glad that we got them into our Spec V – they have become the star occupants of our aquarium!
Being something new, I was a bit aprehensive about housing them, but it turns out that Red Cherry Shrimp (RCS) are quite hardy and easy to keep. I am also discovering they are very prolific in reproducing! Breeding red cherry shrimp is very simple and is as easy as
Aquarium Safe Plastics
When I was gathering various tubs and containers to use in my aquarium maintenance, I wondered what plastic containers would be suitable and safe to use. I didn’t want a plastic container that would leach harmful chemicals into the water I was transferring.
The answer turned out to be simple, and relates to
How to Make Your Own (Python) Aquarium Water Changer
The first time I read about a Python water changer, I knew it was what I wanted to use for my new aquarium’s maintenance. There are several challenges with performing a water change for your aquarium. Some kits rely on
How to Accurately Dose Chemicals in a Nano Aquarium
I have used Seachem’s products in our Fluval Spec V since we built it up. I love their Prime water conditioner and Flourish Excel for plant growth. The one challenge to using their very concentrated formulas in a small nano aquarium is accurately dosing in small quantities. Their suggestion to use the threads on the cap to estimate 1 ml for each thread I find highly inaccurate. This leads to wasted product and possibly over dosing. I first thought that a syringe would be the best way to meter out small quantities in ml. However, even that had problems
Using an Aquarium Cooling Fan – Does it Work?
This is the first full year that our aquarium has been up and running, so we are learning new things every month. What we have learned at the start of this summer is that we are having a hard time beating the heat, and are loosing control of the temperature in our
How to Regenerate / Clean Seachem Purigen
I have been using Seachem Purigen in the filter section of my Fluval Spec V aquarium for a few months now. I recently pulled up the filter material and the Purigen has now turned a nice, dark brown patina. Their instructions have the following to say about when to clean: “Exhaustion is indicated by a pronounced discoloration of the beads to dark brown or black.” While not yet black, I couldn’t help myself
How to Make a DIY Aquarium Temperature Controller
As I was researching what heater to put in our Fluval Spec V aquarium, I dutifully came across many grim reviews for various heaters that told of failures where the internal thermostat broke in the ‘on’ position, quickly baking (killing) everything in the tank. It seemed that I could try and spend more cash on a model that was more reliable, but